1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ethylene propylene rubber blend containing an ethylene-.alpha.-olefin-diene copolymer having at least propylene as its .alpha.-olefin component (hereinafter referred to as "EPDM"), the EPDM being the rubber component of the blend. The present invention further relates to a hose formulated from the same.
2. Description of Related Art
Hitherto, the materials for a rubber layer of inner tubes of brake hoses, etc. have mainly been composed of styrene-butadiene rubber (hereinafter referred to as "SBR").
EPDM tends to be used in place of SBR due to recent demands for maintenance-free cars, increased temperatures of working atmospheres for brake fluids, and the use of high boiling brake fluids. However, brake hoses comprising EPDM suffer from the problems that they are high in compression set and the modulus of elasticity greatly changes depending upon the temperature. In an attempt to improve these characteristics of brake hoses, it has been proposed to use specific EPDM vulcanized with peroxides (U.S. Pat. No. 5,162,441). This peroxide-vulcanized product is difficult to knead and, in addition, cannot be smoothly extruded and is inferior in processability.